ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that journalism is practiced by “journalists” and “women journalists” ignores ideological formations both inside and outside newsrooms that misleadingly assess people’s potential by virtue of a single feature of identity. In the late 19th century, women began entering UK and US newsrooms in great numbers, usually to support themselves and their families. The ancient history of gender in the newsroom begins with initial consensus that, at best, women could use their distinctive womanly sensibility to cover women—only women—whose interests were dichotomously different from men’s. Some scholars argue that women apply different ethical concepts and professional practices and the fact that women and men think and act differently in the newsroom has feminized journalism. In sum, women recognize that many of their male colleagues are sexist, but they largely adopt journalism’s structures as part of the profession and choose to embrace its reward system.
